"Truth can be stated in a thousand different ways, yet each one can be true." - Swami Vivekanand

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Is Gujarat Govt. anti-Muslim?

To this modern day, in our ugly socio-politics, it has become necessary
to criticize Narendra Modi and attack Gujarat Govt. to show how secular we are!
That has become a fashion for self-claimed secularists who are in reality
pseudo-secularists.

The Congress Govt. speaks much about religious minorities and makes a
show to woo them. It has started building new(or continued with building of)
Haj Houses despite Supreme Court Judgment (by Shri. Aftab Alam and Smt. Ranjana
Desai JJ) to stop the Haj subsidies in phasewise manner. UPA Govt’s ‘spineless
head(!)’ Mr. ‘Moun’mohan Singh depicts the famous character of ‘Dhrutarashtra’
under whose nose all sins are being committed. He went ahead in saying that
Muslims of this country have first right over the resources.

Also, it has been an old and overused trick to appoint Committees and
get favourable reports. It is necessary to remember few like Rajinder Sachar
Committee, Rangnath Mishra Committee and U. C. Bannerjee Committee among
others. Govt. acts upon such reports immediately and comes out with welfare
schemes, scholarships, policies, freeships based on religion! Andhra Pradesh
High Court struck down such a policy of AP State Government. For Maharashtra a
similar policy was challenged in the Bombay HC; but Bombay HC failed to
contemplate the dangers of the policy and could not envisage the divisive
politics behind it. Now both the matters are sub-judice in the Supreme Court by
way of Special Leave Petitions for ultimate decision.

But when we come to the Sachar Committee Report and Gujarat State, a very
interesting piece of information I found, which is worth sharing with my
readers.

Sachar Committee and its suggestion: Sachar
Committee was established on March 9, 2005 under the chairmanship of Justice
Rajinder Sachar to prepare a comprehensive report on the social, economic, and
educational status of Muslims in Bharat. The Committee submitted its findings
in November 2006.

It has suggested various measures to be taken by the Governments at
Central as well as State level to elevate Muslims to a better position. The
recommendation relevant here was that ‘posting a minimum of one Muslim
inspector or sub-inspector in police stations which catered to a sizeable
number of the minority community. This, the Sachar Committee said should be
done to “not eliminate discrimination but as an initiative to build
confidence”.

Thus State Governments were supposed to endeavor for this goal and
implement other ideas or suggestions of the Sachar Committee.

Reality check by TOI under RTI: When Times Of India
(TOI) filed and RTI query before the Home Ministry to know ‘what is the
percentage of Muslims in states’ police forces’, some interesting and
astonishing information has been revealed.

The highest number of Muslim police personnel is in the state of Gujarat!
Then follows Assam, Kerala, W.Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. The
picture will be clear by a look at following image. The main thing is that,
states like Assam, Kerala etc. having more Muslim percentage in population than
Gujarat have less percentage of policemen as compared to Gujarat. Fortunately
Kerala, Assam have no BJP rule in it.

The point which is being made here does not wish to justify the view
that Sachar Committee report should be implemented. Infact on scores of issues mentioned
in the Report, this author finds himself in disagreement. Many suggestions are
vulnerable to criticism and rejection. The point here is to give due credit to
a person who was severely blamed for spreading communal hatred. Without
advertising for secularism, nearly 10 years of continuous rule in Gujarat has
proved what can be a role model for other states to follow.

5 comments:

Excellent post. As Vikram has stated, Sachar committee Report is not some Bible of how-to's, but Gujarat has clearly seen good results from Modi's rule. If the Keshubbhai faction gets a slap in the face in current election along with the divisive and cowardly I.N.Congress, it would be a 5-star report on Modi from his own state's people ..... the only one's qualified to make a judgement of how good he has been in office. As a Gujarati myself, I say more power to Modi!. Personally, I hope he stays in Gujarat for sake of Gujarat, rather than having to go to Delhi with his hands tied by BJP faction & party politics not to mention all the other politicians from other narrow-minded and self-interest promoting parties.

The main reason behind the current situation of Muslims in Hindusthan is they don't feel belonged to this nation. Mr. Sachar is suggesting something with the intention of intigrating the Muslims into the mainstream. But, that will not work unless the Muslims show willingness to get integrated. So despite giving them so much of incentives, we are not getting the desired outcome. And that is spreading distrust amongst the majority population of Hindus about the attempts like Sachar Committee's recommendations.